BAGHDAD (AP)  At least 25 people working in Iraq's Ministry of the Interior have been arrested on accusations of participating in a plot to restore Saddam Hussein's outlawed party, a government investigator said Thursday.

The 25 people include a brigadier general but are mostly low-level ministry employees who were taken into custody over the last three days, said the official, who has access to the investigative file.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter to media.

Those arrested are accused of trying to recruit people to restore the party, the official said. The investigation is continuing and more arrests are possible, he said.

The U.S. military said it had no comment, and referred all inquiries to the Iraqi government.

The Baath Party ruled Iraq for 35 years until the regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The decision to outlaw the Baath party was the first official act of L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority, and along with his order to disband the Iraqi army has been widely blamed for setting in motion the Sunni insurgency in the fall of 2003.

The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules meant that many senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies were fired.

But in February, Iraq's presidency council issued a controversial law that allowed lower-ranking former Baath party members to reclaim government jobs.

The measure was thought to effect about 38,000 members of Saddam's political apparatus, giving them a chance to go back to government jobs. It was also meant to allow those who have reached retirement age to claim government pensions.

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